Of Tea, Biscuits, and Misplaced Orange Juice
by Jayne Foyer
Summary: Alfred and Bruce begin to notice that there's something not quite right about Damian's behavior. Alfred has the vocabulary to call them "symptoms" while all Bruce has is a haunting memory of a childhood torn away from him again and again, not by his parents' deaths, but by something within him, something inside his head he couldn't control.


**Real talk of mental illness and Bruce's suicidal tendencies. Please be cautious if that sort of thing affects you.**

 _I am nine, and it is the last days of August._

 _"Master Bruce," says Alfred – it's hot, so he has the windows in the kitchen open, and that's where I'm sitting. "I took the liberty of having your uniform tailored – you've grown quite a bit over the summer."_

 _I remember it vividly: fourth grade is on its way, at Brentwood Academy for Boys. Light is fading into dusk, and Alfred is washing dishes from our small dinner, tea and biscuits placed carefully on the table before me. It is much later that I understand this isn't typical dessert for boys my age, but old traditions die hard._

 _My parents have been dead for almost three months. It is only in the past few weeks that things have finally settled down. Alfred took me on a road trip a while ago, to get me out of Gotham, and into a better shape of mind. But I am nine years old, and have not yet mastered the valuable skill of deciding what I am going to feel._

 _Their graves are on the north side of the house, which is a part of the Manor we have rarely tread since then. When I have been out to visit them, Alfred comes with me and stands behind me and waits. Except for when it's night time and I go out there by myself, in my pajamas and a checkered robe which was a Christmas gift last year: then Alfred does not come out, but I see a light go on in the house, and sometimes there is a warm mug of tea waiting for me when I return._

 _"I'm not going back to school," I say._

 _Alfred doesn't immediately look up from the sink, where he continues to wash our dishes, washing the delicate china plates upon which we ate roast lamb and potato salad. Finally, he is finished, and sets the cutlery aside, on the drying rack. Then, wiping his hands with a washcloth, he turns to look at me, sitting forlornly at the table, and he says: "Yes you are, Master Bruce."_

 _"No," I reply, picking at my biscuits. "I'm not. You can't make me. You're just the butler."_

 _Does this sting him? I can't remember. I wasn't looking at him, but down at the morsels and the sugar dust from my crumbling biscuits. But then he comes away from the kitchen counter, to the plain wooden table – we're not yet back to eating in the dining room, that will come later, slowly, slowly – and he sits down beside me._

 _"Bruce," he says. "Chin up."_

 _"No," I say. "I'm never going back to school again."_

 _"Yes you are," he repeats. "Look at me. Come on, then. Look at me, Bruce."_

 _I do. Again, memory fails me here, and I can't remember if there were tears in my eyes. Much of me thinks there were, thinks that at nine years old I had enough grief to fill me up and run pouring down my cheeks at any moment. But another part of me remembers that children's wounds heal quickly, and it is the memory of the pain more so than pain itself that haunts us. Determination may have overshadowed my misery, and I could have been dry-eyed in this moment. I do not remember._

 _"Your father," Alfred says, "was a doctor. Do you know how many years of school that took?"_

 _My father was still in school when I was born, so I say: "A lot."_

 _"A lot. Many, many years. Why do you think he did that?"_

 _"To help people," I answer. "When they're sick."_

 _Alfred's nod is tainted by a slight shrug, as if to indicate that my answer was completely rational and true, but incorrect. This is an idiosyncrasy I will later come to adopt, with my own children. "Yes," he said. "But it was also for you, Master Bruce."_

 _Following a child's logic, I say, "For when I'm sick."_

 _There is a laugh from Alfred then, and it is a beautiful sound. A laugh, in this house! An unthinkable, beautiful sound. "Perhaps," he admits, amused. "He never was a pediatrician, but it's true enough that he regularly made exceptions for you." He pauses, and almost hesitates, as if he suspects that talking about my parents is not the right thing to be doing for either of us. But I am still a child, and if he didn't talk about them, I wouldn't know how to remember them. I wish, now, that I had had the words then to express that to him. "No," he continues, "your father went to school for many, many years. He enjoyed most of it. Suffered through some years, but then again, so did we all, and so shall you." Then there is a smile. I am young, and smiles from adults still have the curative power to make me feel as if all is right in the world. "He and your mother put all that work into making opportunities for you. I think he would hate to see you waste them because you don't want to start the fourth grade."_

 _Then, I remember for certain, there were tears in my eyes. My tea was only lukewarm, and I looked down into it, at the dregs collecting at the base._

 _I look up at Alfred before me, such an old man to me then. He was as old then as I am now. I ask, "Do I have to wear a real tie?"_

 _Again, Alfred laughs, gentler now. "No, Master Bruce," he assures me. "You can still wear your clip-on tie. You've got a few more years for that, I suspect." He doesn't move for a moment, then reaches out and gently brushes his hand through my hair. "You're doing perfectly well, Bruce. As well as one can hope to be, given the circumstances."_

 _Nothing is right with the world, but next Monday is my first day of school, and I go, and I wear my simple, easy, clip-on tie._

"Dick," Bruce says, in his low, familiar rumble. "You can go."

Predictably, Dick deflects. "I know I _can_ go," he says, fresh from a workout, hovering around, waiting for patrol. "Have you nailed the O'Neil murder guy yet? My bet's on the wife."

"The wife has a solid alibi," answered Bruce. He paused at the computer panel, then turned in his seat, back to where Dick was pawing through information on the smaller computer behind him. "She was in Maui."

"Yeah, but," said Dick distractedly, looking at something intently. "That's suspicious. Maybe she hired a thug."

"The handiwork was too personal for a hired killer."

"Well, if it was the wife, then that would explain that, wouldn't it?"

Bruce watched his eldest son carefully for a few moments, then said: "I know you're here for Damian."

Uncharacteristically cautious (but characteristically refusing to dull the sharp edges of his words), Dick replied, "Did I ever claim otherwise?"  
Bruce said, "He's doing perfectly well."

Dick countered, "He spent three days as part of a crew of boys staffing a child slavery ring. He had to stand by and watch unspeakable things done to one of his best friends-"

Almost doubtfully, Bruce began, "You'd call Lian Harper one of his best-?"

Shaking his head with conviction, Dick said, "It doesn't matter. I left sooner than I should've to begin with. I just want to touch base with him and make sure he's OK."

There was a slight pause between them, and Bruce seemed to be considering Dick's words. Then he ceded the victory to the younger man, and turned back to his computer. "He may be under some stress, but that's precisely why he took the weekend with the Titans. Under the guise of setting up the team, that is." He paused, glanced back at Dick, and added, rather venomously, "I don't see you knocking at the Harpers's door to check if Lian's all right."

"I already did that."

"And?"

There might have been concern for a child who was not his own in Bruce's voice, and this made Dick suspicious. "She's fine," he answered. "She actually wasn't hurt, physically, I mean. As far as she's telling her dad, anyway. And, you know," he shrugged, "she's tougher than Damian, so."

Just as Bruce looked about ready to fight this, an alarm tripped on the computer, alerting Bruce that Damian was returning with the jet. Dick wandered over to stand beside Bruce's seat, watching the screen as it tracked the plane. When Damian did not immediately land, Dick asked, "What's he doing?"

With a small shrug, Bruce explained, "He's circling, three times. Just a habit he's formed."

"Habit?" echoed Dick, watching the screen before them. There was wariness in his frame, in the way he leaned forward, viscerally invested in the kid.

Once the plane was landed and safely nested in the garage beneath the Cave, it took longer than usual for Damian to join them. "I could run down there," Dick offered, eager to relieve the tension. "Just to make sure he's not getting into trouble or anything."

"Wasn't it you who once told me," Bruce reminded him, "that we have to give him space? Give him room to breathe."

After a moment's hesitation, Dick began, "I just worry about him-" but was quickly cut off by Damian finally entering through the doors below the computer platform, then coming up the stairs. His expression was subdued, but miserable, and he had already peeled his mask off his face, rubbing intensely at the gum around his eyes.

As Damian passed Dick and his father, Bruce said, "You're home early."

Without stopping, Damian muttered, "I'm not going on patrol tonight."  
In protest, Dick was already after him, reaching out, grabbing hold of his shoulder. "What!" he said. "I came all the way down here just to go out with you, kiddo. Don't bail on me now."

Damian looked around at him, still rubbing around his eyes, rubbing up a redness which only emphasized the sallow, waxy-gray skin beneath his eyes, betraying a lack of sleep. "Sorry," he said bluntly. He tried to pull away, but Dick reached out and took his shoulder again.

"It's OK," said Dick. "You look like you could use the sleep anyway." He paused, and when Damian did nothing but stare vacantly back at him, he added, "How was seeing the Titans?"

"Fine," answered Damian shortly. Dick figured he should've expected that answer.

"How's Lian?" he asked.

Damian said, "She's fine."

"Did you see Chris?"

"Yes."

"Let me guess. Also fine."

"Very much so," said Damian. "Goodnight." He turned to go again, but this time Dick held on.

"Hey, hey," Dick said, lowering his voice slightly; Bruce considered this his cue to butt out, and turned back to the computer, poring over the information for the O'Neil case. Was it the wife, after all? Dick reached up to pry at Damian's unrelenting hand, already making angry red marks across his eye sockets, along the balls of his cheeks. Quietly, although all was refracted and echoed in the big cave, he asked, "Is the adhesive bothering you? Still using regular spirit gum? Maybe we can look for something organic, or something, for you-"

When Dick touched his face, Damian reeled away as if brushed by fire, and said too loudly, "Don't touch me!"

Dick blinked.

Damian rubbed harder beneath his left eye, steadied himself, and added emphatically, "Don't touch my face," then he turned and he went up the stairs into the Manor, skipping them three at a time.

With an accusatory look on his face, Dick turned to face Bruce, who met his gaze almost guiltily. "Perfectly well?" Dick asked, echoing Bruce's earlier words.

Bruce didn't roll his eyes, but thought about it, and turned back to the computer. "As well as he could be," he said, "given the life he lives."

 _I am newly twelve. It's the first day of spring; somewhere, Dick Grayson is being born. His birth certificate says Tallahassee, Florida, but he likes to talk about how everyone in the circus had fake doctors signing off on fake birth certificates, and holds some sort of fantasy of a romantic European birth, in Italy or Greece or Romania, from where his father's family hails. When Dick was still young, Alfred once broke out the genealogy books, and together we traced my family back through eight generations in Gotham. I can remember Dick, wide eyes, looking up at me: "Didn't you come from_ somewhere _?"_

 _So I am twelve. The sixth grade has not been bad to me. Other kids are nice to me, so it's easy to sit back and accept their friendliness. Tommy's mother has been sick lately; I haven't seen much of him. Alfred drives me to school every day and picks me up and drives me home._

 _"Perhaps," he ventures, one night when we're eating, back out at the long dining room table, "you could join a sports team?"_

 _"I want to join the wrestling team," I answer. "I want to learn jiu-jitsu actually, but wrestling is all right."_

 _"Excellent," he says. At the time, I can't tell, but he's relieved. "When do we sign up?"_

 _"Can't," I tell him. "We only have a high school wrestling team."_

 _Crestfallen, but hiding it well – a talent he retains to this day – Alfred says, "Ah. Shame. Still. Only two years to go, eh, Master Bruce?"_

 _I grin at him – grins are easier over dinner, talking about wrestling, on the first day of spring. "Two years to go," I agree, like a truce, or a promise._

 _It is only when the school year ends and I am plunged, once again, into the unwilling silence of the summertime that I realize I've gone an entire year without making a single friend._

 _As a child, it gets like that sometimes: you forgot that you are rich and well-known, and think that people are smiling at you because they love you. I am wealthy, and privileged, and twelve years old; being all of these things, it is surprisingly easy to also be alone._

Rarely did they share a meal together: rarer still that it isn't immediately after a long mission, both still mostly in uniform. But there was a Wayne charity gala of some sort in the evening, the kind of event that Bruce Wayne couldn't miss. Thus Alfred roused his boys out of bed, and announced that he anticipated them ( _both_ of them, he stressed, as Bruce pressed a pillow over his face to block the light from the windows), in the dining room for a healthy midday breakfast.

To his surprise, it was Bruce who appeared first. This obviously surprised Bruce too, because he glanced around the table, then asked, "Where's Damian?" as Alfred handed him the Gotham Gazette, the Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

"Still in bed, perhaps?" suggested Alfred. "Or else he may have found himself lost in the vast expanses of the Manor, God forbid. It is possible."

Catching Alfred's sarcastic tone soothed Bruce, and he nodded, picking up the Gazette. He asked, "You're joining us?"

Alfred almost laughed and answered, "Yes of course, Master Bruce."

Bruce eyed the kitchen door. "Do you need any help?"

"Very kind," Alfred replied. "But I happen to be an expert in scrambled egg whites, bacon, and nearly all variations of the kale-based protein shake, sir." Bruce nodded, and Alfred retreated to the kitchen, where the bacon was browning nicely.

The teenager – he was fourteen, just barely fourteen, a late summer, early autumn baby – entered the room almost silently, except that Bruce was very acutely attuned to his son's footsteps, and heard him the moment he appeared. Bruce did not look up, eyes skimming across the news, only reading a full sentence here and there, enough to pick up on the important things.

Bruce sat at the head of the table, and Damian beside him, Alfred usually on his other side. Damian got to his seat, and sat down once, then got up, then sat down again, then got up, and then repeated this once more. It only lasted a few seconds, but it was enough that Bruce noticed, and paused in his news-consuming. When Damian laid his hands palms-down flat on the table top, Bruce narrowed his eyes slightly, in confusion more than suspicion. Along the round swells of Damian's knuckles, down the length of bone in his finger, purple-brown bruises turning yellow around the edges discolored his skin, injuries from the beatings he'd doled out the previous night.

Sourly, staring down at his fingers on the finished wood of the dining room table, Damian said: "I hate bruises on my hands."

This further confused Bruce, who found himself unsure what to tell his son. Taking a sip of coffee to bide a moment's time, he finally told him, "Looks like we need to reinforce your gloves. Your whole uniform could do with an update, you're growing so fast it'll be practically useless in a few months." He went back to his newspaper, added, "That reminds me, we need to start you on more weights soon. And work on your balance. Dick and Tim both had some trouble adjusting to coordination when they were your age, Tim more so. Mostly because of the height. I expect you to shoot up any day now."

As he said this last remark, he glanced up once more from his paper, just as Damian was turned to face him, although his eyes seemed to be far away.

Immediately, Bruce lowered the paper and asked, "Is that a black eye?"

Damian blinked, then raised his left hand self-consciously to his face, hiding his eye.

Bruce watched him. "Is that a black eye from last night?" he asked again, patiently. Damian didn't reply, but it was too late: Bruce had seen the skin around Damian's left eye, rubbed red and raw, obviously not a bruise, but instead an irritation, as if someone had been scrubbing and scratching at his skin.

In defeat, Damian lowered his hand, along with his gaze. "I need a new mask, too," he murmured, hands flat against the table again. "This one keeps…" he stopped abruptly, then continued, "Keeps getting dirt underneath. I can't get it off."

"The mask?" asked Bruce.

Damian's gaze flickered up to meet his, the honey-brown of his eyes boring into Bruce's icy blues. "The dirt," he said simply.

Before Bruce could reply, Alfred entered from the kitchen, bringing a tray with two wide plates full of food on it, placing one before Bruce and one before his own empty spot. He went back into the kitchen, and returned once more with the same tray, this time bearing another plate of food, two green kale protein shake monstrosities, and three glasses of orange juice. He placed the final plate before Damian, then dispensed the various beverages along the table. Finally, he settled down in the seat beside Bruce, eyes on Damian.

Bruce, uncertain, also glanced at his son. Damian seemed inexplicably unhappy; he pushed his plate away from him and wouldn't meet either of their gazes. "I'm not hungry," he murmured.

"Why on earth not?" asked Alfred, long-sufferingly, before Bruce could speak. "What did I do wrong this time, Master Damian?"

At first Damian did not answer, glancing pettily over at the old man. Then he said: "The juice."

"The juice," repeated Alfred. "What about it, if I may be so bold?"

"Is it from a bottle?"

Shaking his head, Alfred replied, "Hand-pressed, just now. Fresh oranges, picked by myself, from the orange tree overlooking the koi pond in the back garden." Glancing at the Bruce, he added, "Which, by the way, has fallen into dreadful disrepair."

"We'll fix it," said Bruce, then, to his son, he asked, "Damian, what's wrong with the juice?"

He did not answer his father, eyes still on Alfred. "Did you mix it?" he asked.

"Mix what, Master Damian?" asked Alfred, almost tiredly.

"The juice," answered Damian. He seemed frustrated, as if his problem, whatever it was, was as clear as day. "The protein shake and the orange juice, did you mix them?"

"No," answered Alfred clearly. "Two completely different instruments to make them, very separately." He considered this, then added, "There is, I will admit, a hint of citrus in the shake, but I assure you that it comes from a completely different orange than the any of those used in your juice."

This did not assuage Damian, who continued to look distressed.

Alfred leaned across the table – Bruce was still veritably confused, but Alfred seemed to know what he was doing and Bruce was not about to interrupt – and, lowering his voice, asked, "What's really wrong, Damian? We'll do our best to fix it, you and I, and your father."

For a single moment, Damian pressed his eyes tightly closed, then opened them again and muttered, "It doesn't match."

As if this made perfect sense, Alfred leaned back in his seat. Bruce glanced between the two of them, clueless. To Alfred, he asked, "What doesn't match?"

"Three juices," answered Alfred; he did, apparently, seem to understand. He pointed at the bright orange juice, before the three of them, and then pointed again at the green protein shakes, before only Bruce and Damian. "Two shakes."

Bruce looked at Alfred, very confused. The old man made an expression to indicate that Bruce stay silent for a moment, then said to Damian, "Shall I go make myself one? Surely an old man like me could use some extra protein in his diet."

"There's no point," muttered Damian miserably. "I'm not hungry."

"Damian," said Bruce. Alfred caught his eye, and he did his best to sound sympathetic. "You have to eat."

A moment's silence. Alfred stood and said, "Why don't I take all juice of all kinds away? I'll fetch some milk, perhaps."

"No," said Damian bluntly.

Alfred sat back down.

Bruce didn't know what to do. Floundering, he glanced to Alfred, who watched the boy with soft, gentle eyes. He began, "What did you do to your face, Master Damian?" but the question was barely out of his mouth before Damian stood up and left the room. A few moments later, a door slammed; then it sounded like it immediately reopened, and slammed again, and then a third time. Utterly perplexed, Bruce turned to the butler once again.

"What just happened?" Bruce asked.

For a moment, Alfred said nothing. Then, with a sigh, he turned to Bruce and explained, "Damian has been having a fair amount of…trouble, lately, when it comes to his food."

"What do you mean?" asked Bruce. "How is this the first I've heard of this?"

One eyebrow raised, Alfred noted, "Do you dine with your son often, Master Bruce?"

"I would, were it at all possible," Bruce replied, more hurt than he had anticipated. "What's wrong with him?"

"Nothing _wrong_ ," said Alfred mildly, picking at his own scrambled eggs. "For all our sakes', Master Bruce, please refrain from using that sort of language around him."

Following Alfred's example, Bruce looked down at his own food, stabbed it unenthusiastically. Then, unable to stay silent, Bruce looked up again and asked, "He's not eating?"

"He is," answered Alfred. "He does much better when he's with me, where he can watch his meals being prepared, but usually he will eat the food I prepare for him. If he's alone, that is."

"Alone?" Bruce asked. "He doesn't want to eat in front of us?"

"Getting warmer, sir," said Alfred. He took a thoughtful bite of bacon and looked at Bruce, saw how tense he seemed, concerned for his son. "Surely," he said, "with your superior detective skills, you've come to notice that he seems to have found himself a lucky number. Yes?"

"Three," said Bruce, "is a lucky number for a lot of people. The Holy Trinity, father-mother-child, the threefold rule – in Chinese numerology, three is considered to be a good number-"

"It seems," said Alfred, quietly, "almost like a compulsion, if you ask me. Which, naturally, nobody did, so I shall cease my yammering, for your sake."

He did so, and Bruce sat there at the table with the empty seat beside him, a midday breakfast left untouched, and concern beginning to bloom in his chest.

 _I am fourteen._

 _This is the hardest to remember._

 _It has been two lonely years, but in early September, Alfred helped to move me into my dorm room at Brentwood. I have a roommate, but he doesn't talk to me; by this point, no one really does. I've carved out my own small niche at this school, and it is small and rich and quiet. I don't know when it became so hard for me to talk to people, to talk like other teenagers; surely back when I was a child I was better at this, even after what happened on that fateful night. Surely I used to be happy; used to be, at least, capable of suspecting I was happy._

 _That year, classes began on the day that, much later in life, I would come to observe as my son's birthday._

 _But in this memory, it is December. I have been in the dorms all school year so far, except for Thanksgiving and that four day weekend during which Alfred took me to Metropolis. He knows I like cityscapes, urban architecture, that kind of thing. Metropolis only made me feel anxious and exposed. But I didn't tell him. I couldn't ruin it for him._

 _It is December. I am home, back at the Manor for winter break. It is five days before Christmas, and there is a large tree in the main living room, beneath which lay dozens of presents. Tomorrow, we are planning to go to the soup kitchen and provide food to the homeless and the hungry in the cold, sharp winter months._

 _I have seen this on TV. I run the bathtub in my own bathroom. I thought about using the master bathroom, but I couldn't do it there. That was where my parents used to live, and I cannot think of my parents, alive, while I do what I am about to do._

 _When the bathwater is warm but not hot, I climb in. I am not completely undressed. I am thinking about how I will be found, and I want it to be with some dignity still left intact._

 _My roommate is named John. He moves away from Gotham, later. We don't keep up. He becomes irrelevant. He goes, and I stay; this is how things happened to me, I felt, for too long. This time, I would be the one to go._

 _John owns a handcrafted straight razor, a manly gift from his father, a big, burly, hearty man. John kept it in the bottom drawer of his desk, and never took it out except to show his friends. I stole it._

 _I am lying in a warm bathtub holding a razorblade in one hand. I make my peace with God._ Forgive me _, I think. I think I might have whispered it out loud, but I can no longer remember. I do remember, however, not thinking about my parents. It isn't about seeing them again. It is something much simpler than that._

 _Death is no adventure to me, no portal to bring me to those I had lost. It is only an exit._

 _Alfred finds me twenty minutes in, when I don't respond to his shouting. By this time I am faint, but not yet unconscious. I realized the bathwater wasn't high enough about three minutes in, but I can feel myself slip downwards anyway, waiting for the water, no longer warm but certainly not yet cold, turned salty like the Red Sea, or more aptly, like the Nile in Pharaoh's time. I don't remember seeing Alfred's face, but I can hear him. I can feel his touch, after all these years. He is a desperate man, and I am his dying son._

 _(Years later, when I think about it, I realize that the cuts were shallow, and the blood lost was not nearly enough to prove fatal. I was not dying. In that moment, though, I am sure that I was his son.)_

 _When he tries to corral me into the car, towels pressed tightly against my arms, blooms of crimson blood webbing up its stitching, that's when I am pulled back to reality. Like a child – like the child I was – I scream and kick and weep, beg him not to bring me to the hospital. Not where Father worked._

 _It is the first of too many wounds Alfred would dutifully stitch up for me._

It was wintertime. Too early for snow, but the rain poured unrelentingly against the windowpane. The worst of the storm had already passed, but the downpour had been nonstop for the entire week. Despite what one might think, the Batman did not care for rain. It washed away precious evidence, blurred his vision, made patrol that much less tolerable. As a younger man, he'd searched for some kind of compromise involving an umbrella which wouldn't seem out of place on his impressive suit, but unfortunately this had never come to any fruition.

In short, Bruce hated the rain. He hovered in the drawing room, waiting for that inevitable ray of sunlight to burst through the clouds, which were lessening every day. There was a book in his hands – Diana had recommended it to him, and he trusted her judgment, far more than he trusted Clark's, anyhow – waited for his son. He wore a pair of spectacles, just for close-up reading, just to make sure he kept himself in his best shape. Damian was in the gym, and Alfred was to bring him into the drawing room as soon as he was finished. His fussiness when it came to food had only worsened; he claimed to eat alone, but Bruce had seen nothing pass his son's lips for weeks now. Doors opened and closed in rapid threes. When Damian slept, both Bruce and Alfred were kept awake by heaving breaths, gentle whining, and, on occasion, a terrified scream, evidence of nightmares which Damian refused to acknowledge when he was awake. Regularly Alfred had to change his sheets, and twice Bruce had caught Damian in compromising positions in the Cave, although he refused to talk about it and Bruce had no idea how to go about doing so. During a mission, he'd leered at Bruce's informants, women, some sex workers; had it been any other day, under any other circumstances, Bruce would've chalked it up to Damian's classist attitude and appalling tendency to vent personal issues via casual misogyny, but this time something about the look in Damian's eye struck him, and they ended patrol and returned to the Cave right after that. That predatory look in Damian's eye: that was new. Bruce was certain of it. That had not always been there.

He had hit a police officer whilst on patrol, because, so Damian claimed, "he was watching me." Fortunately it had been a corrupt officer which Bruce had been keeping an eye on to begin with, but still, it was out of line.

The first time Alfred had resorted to bandaging Damian's eye, he'd removed the bandages himself and scratched straight through his eyelid, which had caused a minor meltdown. Bruce had told him no patrol for two weeks, and Damian had protested, then settled, reluctantly, on fifteen nights.

He hadn't seen the Titans in weeks. Clark had called once, with a message from his son which Damian had refused to return. He kept talking about business to finish at home.

Unlike his father, the rain seemed to agree with Damian. He came into the room in good spirits, grinning, body warm and powerful beneath his skin. Even still he seemed pale, and his eye was still terribly red, although he had consented to a small Band-aid at the very least.

"Father," he said, entering the drawing room; Bruce removed his spectacles, closing his book. "You wanted to speak to me?"

"Yes," answered Bruce, nodding to the small sofa. Obediently, Damian sat. Bruce almost didn't notice the small, practiced movements, those which looked like reflex but were something much closer to ritual by now: with as little movement as possible, Damian sat, stood, sat, stood, and repeated it one final time.

Neither of them spoke. Bruce scrutinized his son. Then he said: "I want you to see a doctor."

Self-consciously, Damian's hand flew up to his eye. "Why?" he asked, a crease in his brow. "It's healing fine."

"I don't mean for that," said Bruce. "I don't mean that kind of doctor."

Another silence, although this time there was a hint of iciness.

Damian said: "You think I'm sick."

"I think you need help," Bruce said, smoothly. "Help which neither I nor Alfred are equipped to give you."

"Call Dick," said Damian.

Bowing his head slightly to soften the rejection, Bruce replied, "This is not the type of problem solved by a visit from your brother."

Damian started to scratch at his eye.

With a small shake of his head, Bruce said, "Don't do that, Damian."

"Shh," hissed Damian, holding his other hand out; his eyes were suddenly closed, and he scratched harder by his eye, as if concentrating. "Shh. Shhh."

Bruce said nothing, watching his son cautiously.

Then Damian got up quickly, out of his seat; for a single moment, Bruce thought he was going to tip over with momentum, collapse onto the ground, maybe start seizing – but he only went to a window, pressed up against the chilled glass. Sounding genuinely distressed, he said, "Oh, _no_. Oh no."

"What?" asked Bruce, instantly behind his son, peering out the window. "What's wrong?"

Damian turned around, pressing an accusatory finger against the glass. "The rain," he said. "I knew it was the rain. That's why you're doing this."

Bruce didn't understand. Carefully, he began: "It's been raining all week…"

"It's _stopping_ ," said Damian. "I was OK as long as it was raining. Dammit. _Dammit_." He swore with such conviction, such miserable, terrified certainty that for a single moment, Bruce almost believed him. He rubbed his eye with the ball of his fist, like a baby. Bruce reached out to take his hand, and Damian lashed out, hard, taking Bruce by surprise, landing a hit, hard, on the side of his head. " _Don't_ ," he said, glaring at Bruce like a wounded animal, " _touch_ me."

"The rain isn't stopping," said Bruce, pointing out the window. "It's still raining, Damian. You're fine."

"It's stopping," said Damian.

"It's not," responded Bruce, gesturing again out the window. "Look at it."

Damian looked back out the window. As soon as he looked away, he looked back, until he could barely keep his right eye off of it – his left, still covered by his hand.

Finally, he lowered his hand. The fight seemed to bleed out of him, and he gestured to the chair where Bruce had previously been sitting, and asked, "Are you reading?"  
Bruce blinked. Then he said, "Yes."

"Can I join you?" asked Damian.

Cautiously, Bruce nodded. "Yes," he said. "Of course."

Damian sat by the window, staring out at the clouds, the steady rain still falling from above them.

Bruce got the distinct feeling that Damian wanted to say something, but he didn't know how. Never one for talking when there could be silence, Bruce let that be, returned to his book, and let Damian sit there in his vicinity, eyes peering through the glass, transfixed by the falling rain.

 _I am seventeen, and it is the week before my birthday. It's Valentine's Day. Some boys are giving chocolate hearts to girls (some to other boys, within the dorms, which always causes unnecessary drama). It's snowing outside, but I'm standing on the roof of my dorm, looking down at the ground below me._

 _Someone's cleared all the snow from the blacktop outside our dorm, which was nice. Were I to land in a particularly thick snowdrift, the impact probably wouldn't kill me. A nice clean, straight shot was much easier._

 _I sit on the edge, where the boys in my dorm come to smoke or make out, and think about jumping off._

 _Alfred dug up an old court order that says I'm supposed to go to therapy, so I do. For him. The last doctors gave me medicine, pills in a little orange bottle with my name on it. I gave it to Harvey – my roommate for two years now, the closest thing I have to a friend – and told him it was Ritalin. He didn't believe me, but a few weeks later I heard some boys talking about how Bruce Wayne was giving out coke in the bathroom. I don't think those words came from Harvey, but they came from somewhere._

 _The dorm is only six stories high. Last year I took a class on anatomy, so I know how to fall, so that the jump will stick._

 _In the distance, some kids are having a snowball fight. I suddenly feel a rush of shame, that I'm not there with them. I want to go down, get off this roof, and go throw snowballs. Make a snowman. Alfred would like to make a snowman with me. I want to get off that roof so badly, but no matter how much I think about it, no matter how much I try, I can't stop thinking about the hard blacktop below me, and I can't fool myself into thinking that I would be OK if I just climbed down safely and started to play. I wish I could be that boy. Every day, I wish I could quit being who I am, and be the rich dumbass kid I was born to be._

 _While I'm watching them play, I think briefly of Tommy. I haven't seen him in a while, but he's older than me. He's already eighteen, that money is his to do what he wants with. Maybe he'll go to medical school. He always wanted to be a surgeon._

 _It hits me then, like a coldness, like the winter chill coming in from my bones. It is Wednesday February fourteenth, and by Monday, I will be eighteen, too. That money is mine. I can do what I want. I don't even have to finish school, not if I don't want to._

 _I end up finishing high school. I don't go to graduation. I book a trip to London because it's the first place I can think of._

 _If I still want to kill myself when I get back, I think, while I'm on the private plane, over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, then I will. Meanwhile, there's nothing wrong with enjoying the ride._

It was January thirty-first – Lian's birthday, fourteen, same age as Damian – when Damian came home spitting poison, violence bleeding from his mouth. The whole moment was surreal – it took Bruce a few seconds to realize the blood around his son's eye and on his knuckles was Damian's own, Damian threw the gloves onto the ground and shouted, "I _hate_ bruised hands-"

When he started to shout, Bruce reached out and took hold of him; when he started to get violent, Bruce restrained him, and it wasn't hard to do because something was off, something was strange. When they managed to handcuff him to the examination table in the Cave – the closest thing to a bed – he started to cry. It was an unreal experience. Damian was an exposed nerve, raw and dangerous and begging to be hit, or touched, or something – something he didn't have the words for, something that he desperately wanted, but words failed him, and he was bereft.

Bruce called Dick; Dick arrived in the nighttime, and by that time Damian was better.

He was in his room. Alfred had brought him tea and biscuits, which they could only hope that he had eaten.

Over dinner, Bruce explained everything to Dick. He sat there, stunned, but ate his food dutifully; Bruce hadn't expected it, but seeing at least one of his sons eat relieved him more than he could have imagined (he wondered, briefly, if this was what fatherhood really was like). Dick was upset, but not outraged.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, his eyes big, almost teary. "I could've come back here. I could've helped me."

"How?" asked Bruce. "He felt crowded enough as is. Alfred and I barely managed to take care of him-"

"Exactly, so I could've helped you-"

" _How?_ " repeated Bruce, his voice harder. When Dick did not immediately reply, he pressed forward: "I know you want to help. I know you want the best for Damian. But what would you have done? Forced him to eat something? Bandaged his eye? Because we tried that, Dick, we tried it more than once."

Nothing for a few moments. Then, resentfully: "He always ate with me."

"And he used to with me," replied Bruce, maybe a little more coldly than he would have usually spoken. "I think you were right, Dick."

He wasn't taking the compliment that easily. "About what?" he asked.

"About the incident," Bruce replied, "with Lian Harper. I think that…whatever is going through Damian's head. Whatever is happening to him, it was going to come out sooner or later. But this incident triggered it."

This seemed hard on Dick, who said nothing for a long moment. Then he began, "But it was – I mean, it was just a mission. I've talked to Lian, I've talked to her dad, nothing actually happened, he didn't – nobody touched her, nobody touched him, I just don't see how this whole host of mental health issues could've come out of a couple of bad days, Bruce. I don't get how this could've changed a perfectly normal kid – well, I mean, given the circumstances – into…a total nervous wreck."

Bruce watched Dick. His old friend; brother-son-sidekick, partner in crime, the man who somehow thought he had just as much right to be Damian's father as Bruce did.

Bruce reached out and placed a hand on Dick's shoulder. He said, "I never knew."

Dick watched him. "Never knew what?" he asked.

With a grinding, momentous pain, Bruce answered: "That you didn't understand."

Where there might have been a spark of anger in Dick's eyes, had he been another man, there was only gentleness, and compassion. He took Bruce's hand, and leaned forward. "What?" he asked. "Understand what?"

Bruce wished he could answer this in words. He thought of being nine, and knowing that nothing would ever be the same; of being twelve, and having hope, and losing that; of being fourteen and covered in pinkish, lukewarm water; and of being seventeen and secretly wishing the ledge of the roof was icier than he had anticipated.

"This didn't change him," said Bruce, selecting his words with great caution. "This didn't start something that wasn't already in him, Dick. Grief? And – pain? Those things fade. Memories fade." He paused, watching the other man. "But sometimes your mind plays tricks on you," he said. "No matter who you are, where you're from, what you've done or seen – no matter what, it's there." He took his hand away from Dick and asked, "And what can you do?"

Dick stared at him. Then he said: "You can fight it."

Bruce shook his head. "How do you fight something that's inside of you?"

And then Dick did the complete opposite of what Bruce had been expecting. He said, "You need to talk to him."

"What?" asked Bruce immediately, unsure he'd heard Dick correctly. " _I_ need to?"

"Yeah," said Dick.

Unsure, Bruce asked, "Why do you think we called you?"

On the other side of the Manor, in his room – the only room in the whole house which had a cold draft from the Cave, in the wintertime – Damian Wayne sat before his wide desk, where he usually sketched. Beside him, tea and biscuits sat, untouched.

There was a knock at the door. Tiredly, he said, "Come in."

The door opened, and Alfred entered, teapot in hand. When he saw that Damian's teacup was still full, he did not lament; only placed the hot teapot down and poured some into another cup, picking out two pieces of brown sugar, mixing them in. He sipped quietly, taking a seat on Damian's bed. At Damian's expression, he asked, "Is it all right if I sit here?"

Damian seemed to consider this, then relented. "Yes," he said. "It's fine."

There was silence for a few minutes. Damian stared down at a blank sheet of paper before him, miserably.

Then he said: "I know there's something wrong with me."

Immediately, reassuringly, Alfred began, "There's nothing _wrong_ with you-" but Damian cut him off.

"Yes, there is," he said quietly, still looking down at the paper before him. "In my head. It was wrong before this too, but." He broke off, then finished: "But it's gotten harder to hide."

"Thank God," said Alfred.

Damian looked up at the old man, his dark eyes questioning.

Alfred took a sip of tea, then asked, "Can I tell you something, in confidence?"  
"That depends," he answered, and Alfred laughed softly and shook his head.

"Since," Alfred replied, "I am far too old to be playing games with you, I shall take that as a yes." He took another sip, then coughed, clearing his throat. "I am not happy," he began, "that you are having trouble with your food. Nor that your mask is causing you so much trouble that you're about to dig your own eyeball out for it. Not to mention the violence, the sudden surge of sexual deviancy, the fixations, the nightmares, the compulsions. None of that makes me happy."

"Then why are you happy?" demanded Damian, annoyance visible in the twitch of his wounded eye.

"I'm not," countered Alfred simply, looking back at him. "I'm grateful. There's a difference."

He sipped his tea.

"Master Damian," he said. "The worst day of my lengthy, well-lived life was this day, precisely, for him." Damian seemed confused, and Alfred continued, "Not the date, no, although it was indeed winter, if I recall. Yes. It was during Christmastime, which, in my opinion, makes it so much worse. But clearly he hadn't thought that far ahead."

"What are you talking about?" asked Damian. His left eye, surrounded by a scratched, rash-like redness, blinked more than the other eye, forging an unbalanced stare.

"The day I found out," Alfred replied simply. "It was the day I realized that his pain went much further than the loss of his parents, and the day I first discovered he'd been keeping secrets from me."

"That's not news," Damian retorted. "He's _made_ of secrets."

"He wasn't always," said Alfred.

His gaze went much further than Damian, before him.

"He was fourteen, too," continued Alfred. "I wonder if he remembers that. It's like clockwork, with you boys. I beg you, don't tell him I said that – he blames himself enough as is."

"Alfred," said Damian. "I don't want to hear any more stories. Leave me."

"What you did, earlier," Alfred said, showing no sign of stopping, "when you became violent, with your father, and with me. Before you start getting any ideas about being _bad_ , about being _evil_ , about some _legacy of my father_ nonsense which your poor mother has stamped into your head." He paused, and then he got to his feet, moving to before Damian's desk. He placed his teacup by Damian's, and said, "That was natural, it was out of your control, and it was perfectly fine."

It was then that Damian had to look away. Alfred could not quite see if there was wetness in his eyes, but he did not look for that.

"Damian," he said. The boy didn't turn to look at him, but nodded his head just a fraction. "May I touch your face?" Damian shook his head to indicate no. "Your head?" Another no. "Can I hold your shoulder?"

Damian hesitated. And then, slowly, he nodded.

The old man reached out and gripped Damian's shoulder tightly. "It is much better," Alfred said wisely, "that this has come to light sooner, rather than later. Secrets are meant to keep you safe, not hurt you."

At this, Damian did look up at Alfred, and there were tears in his eyes. "What if I don't hurt me?" he asked, even as the red-raw scratches around his eye taunted him. He asked: "What if I hurt other people?"

Alfred smiled at him. "You don't have to be bad," he said, gently. "This does not make you bad, Damian. Only ill. Like we'd set a broken leg or sew up a cut or neutralize a toxin, we must treat ourselves in the places where it matters, where we have unseeable wounds."

"You mean," said Damian, "in my head."

"The head," agreed Alfred, nodding, "and the heart."

There was a silence between them. Damian moved away from Alfred's hand, and the old man immediately took the hint, retracting his arm. There was no sound, apart from the tick-tock of an analog clock hanging by Damian's window.

Damian mumbled, "You can touch my face now. If you want."

Quickly, smartly, Alfred took advantage of the opportunity, tilting Damian's face upwards to inspect the wounded skin around his eye. Disapprovingly, he _tsk_ ed at Damian, and said, "There'll be a scar. Just a bit." He let go of Damian's face and added, "But it will fade. As all things do."

Then he took his own teacup, and headed out of the room. "Eat your biscuits, Damian," he said. "You'll feel better. I'll book you an appointment for Saturday. Yes?" Without waiting for a reply, he disappeared, leaving Damian feeling slightly sick, with a dull, stinging itch around his left eye and a low, warm, content feeling in his stomach.

He reached past his now-cold tea, retrieved one of the sugar-dusted biscuits, and raised it to his mouth.

 _When you're far from home, sometimes you get ideas. Ideas you couldn't have sustained in the house where you used to live, in its safety, its warm, its kindness._

 _Wrestling team paid off; so did learning jiu-jitsu, although he found out he had much more to learn. It exhilarating, and exciting, and he learned how to feel each pump of his heart, the blood pulsing through his veins, his brilliant, shooting nerves. What a wonder of flesh and blood and power he was – he met monsters and supermen and immortals, and through it all, he discovered that the most wonderful creature he uncovered was himself, bounding heart, limitless brain, and alive. At the end of every day, at the close of every adventure and during the recovery after every new teacher, he found that he was still alive._

 _He remembered that promise to himself, the promise about returning to Gotham. Every night he realized he was alive, every night before he slept, he would ask himself: do I want to die?_

 _Every night the answer remained yes, he stayed abroad, far away from safety, from home, from Alfred._

 _And then one day, he woke up, and he accomplished every task asked of him. He finished every course, won every battle, saved someone, beat someone, did it with his own strong, proud, miracle of a body. And nobody died. Not a single person. He was happy._

 _That night like all nights, he asked himself a question. Do I want to die?_

 _And in the morning, he booked his flight home to Gotham._


End file.
